Kathal: A Jackfruit Mystery 2023

Mahima Basor (Sanya Malhotra) is a competent police officer, but there are often whispers behind her back regarding her caste. She specializes in solving crimes against women and has played a leading role in arresting many women harassers in the area. Mahima works under SP Angrez Singh Randhawa (Gurpal Singh). News reporter Anuj Sanghvi (Rajpal Yadav) works for the local newspaper. However, she has learned to ignore them while keeping up with her work. Her goal currently is for her long-term boyfriend, Saurabh (Anant V Joshi), to get promoted from a constable to an inspector so that they can get married. Before that can happen, they get a new case, that of two missing jack-fruits from a local MLA Munnalal Pateria's (Vijay Raaz) house, which they must find at any cost. Mahima rightfully believes that this is a waste of police time and resources, but she has no option but to investigate.Munnalal wanted to gift the pickle made from the stolen jack-fruits to gift to the state CM and his wife who are big fans of jack-fruit pickles. This would improve his chances to get a minister portfolio in the Government. Bindeshwari is Munnalal's wife. Forensic expert Srivastava (Brijendra Kala) is summoned to investigate. Srivastava takes POP impressions of foot marks around the jack-fruit tree. The prints belonging to a cow are categorized as that of a lady wearing high heel sandals. Constable Mishra (Govind Pandey) is assisting Mahima in the investigations. Constable Kunti Parihar (Neha Saraf) is the female assistant helping Mahima. Kunti is married to Adv. Sunil Parihar (Sanjay Dadhich).Mishra begs Saurabh to marry his daughter. Mishra had fixed her wedding to a family that demands a car as dowry. Mishra had purchased a car, but it was stolen. Now, he has nothing to offer to the perspective groom and hence begs Saurabh. Anuj meanwhile interviews Munnalal about his missing Jackfruits.Mahima discovers that the gardener Birwa was fired two days ago, and she suspects that he might be the thief. Lucky for her, the gardener himself walks into the police station, wanting to file a missing complaint for his daughter.Upon discovering his identity, Mahima immediately locks him up in a cell and questions him regarding the jack-fruits. It turns out that the gardener was unceremoniously fired after the grandson of the MLA misinterpreted his words and made it sound like he was being threatened by him. But the gardener had been at the police station for a day or two to report his daughter missing. However, he was turned away by Saurabh, who believed that the girl must have run away of her own accord and would return soon. Mahima is extremely disappointed in Saurabh upon knowing this, as it puts the future of their relationship in greater danger.Mahima desperately wants Saurabh to get a promotion since that would help his parents overlook the caste barrier between them if they were professional equals, at least. But Saurabh indiscriminately beats up some people and is inattentive at his job, which puts Mahima in a difficult position as his boss. She is unable to fully reprimand him owing to their relationship, but she is also unable to trust him as a colleague.Temporarily, regarding the case, Mahima comes up with a solution: the gardener must say that it was his daughter Amiya who stole the jack-fruits so that the police can divert their resources to look for the girl. The ruse works, and the investigation starts. Mahima finds that several girls have been kidnapped from the area in the recent past. When they inquire in the gardener's village about her, they find that she was recently kidnapped by three men. Amiya used to consume tobacco, which was sold to her by a local shopkeeper. Under interrogation, the shopkeeper reveals that he had seen Amiya with 3 men selling sunglasses in the village. The 3 men were driving a Nano car.Anuj interviews Birwa and finds the truth that police had lied. Mahima intercepts Anuj and gives him the file of all the kidnapped girls from the area and asks Anuj to cooperate with the police in finding and rescuing Amiya. Meanwhile, Saurabh redeems himself by finding the address of the people who sold sunglasses in that area. Saurabh had got the list of all mobile numbers active on the day Amiya was abducted. He found that all except 3 numbers were locals. The 3 numbers were registered to the same man, who ran an optical shop with his 3 sons. The men who kidnapped Amiya (Apoorva Chaturvedi) were also selling sunglasses. As Mahima reaches the optical shop, the owner admits that he had a servant named Bhoora who had all his identity documents. Bhoora ran away from the shop 2 weeks ago. Bhoora had won the owners trust by treating him with a special Khoya Jalebi.Through them, Mahima and her officers discover that these men must have gone to Chhatarpur. They track the CCTV footage of the city and track down the pink Nano that the 3 men were driving. Anuj leaks the news of 43 kidnappings in the area. SP is livid and orders Mahima to arrest Anuj.Mahima tracks the pink Nano between a fuel pump and a highway Dhaba on the way to Chhatarpur. It is shown that the 3 men are working for Gulab Seth (Raghubir Yadav), who is based out of Panna. They activate the phone to call Gulab, and Mahima is able to track them down. Before Mahima reaches there, the men have departed and their phones are switched off again. Mahima ultimately figures out that they must go to the house of the man who was the only one in the area to make Khoya Jalebi, Gulab Seth. True to her suspicions, Mahima finds Amiya there, and after a long fight where a lot of vegetables are thrown around, the police capture the culprits.The reason the MLA was so desperate for the jack-fruits was that he needed to make a pickle out of them to impress someone for his own political ambitions. He couldn't get similar jack-fruits in the market since these were grown from imported seeds. Hence, he sought the help of the police to find his missing fruits.Once Amiya is rescued and taken to court, she is further shamed by the lawyers to present her as the kind of person who would steal something unabashedly. The gardener admits that he lied to the media and the police at Mahima's insistence. When Mahima is asked to explain her actions, she tells the court how she was forced to take such a step to focus on the more pressing matter, which was the missing girl rather than a missing fruit. The judge understands Mahima's point and reprimands the police for using their resources for something that barely costs Rs. 360 in the market. Mahima is not charged with anything, and Amiya is also released from custody. Amiya continues leading a life on her terms and has not been deterred by the obsolete thinking of society.On the other hand, the reporter, Anuj (Rajpal Yadav), is released from jail, where he was being held for publishing the news about the girls missing from the area. He takes it as a mark of respect that he was arrested, as he believes that it is a feather in the cap of any reporter. As for Mahima, she is put in charge of a special cell that has been formed with the sole purpose of investigating the cases of the missing girls. In her personal life, Saurabh gets the promotion he wanted, but Mahima is also made the DSP. An elated Saurabh reassures her that they will not let this become a hindrance to their future.The monkeys around the MLA's house stole the jack-fruits from his tree and are eating them while perched on his rooftop.

Sanya Malhotra

Mahima Basor